Chamart France Perfume Bottles

Chamart (JOHN R. WALKER CO.) was an importing company that originally started in the early 1950's by Charles Martine, hence the name "Chamart". They specialized in fine dinnerware, hand painted ceramics, replica and unusual perfume bottles and crystal.

Chamart is a contraction of the name of its founder, Charles Martine, one of the "personalities" of the gift and tabletop business. Chamart is an affiliate of Charles Martine Imports of New York City. As the result of the devastation inflicted on France by World War II, there was little product to import; only Haviland imported French porcelain - and only its own product. Martine was the first to bring a variety of French porcelains into the U.S. He created the company in the early 1950's and moved to 225 Fifth Avenue, where it remains as one of the building's oldest tenants.

It was not until 1965 that Chamart started developing all hand painted museum quality Limoges boxes as pieces for the coffee table and he introduced the famous Limoges box to the American market, designing a special collection for famed jewelers, Tiffany & Company. The line developed slowly and over the last thirty five years has evolved into Limoges boxes as we know them today. It was immensely popular and quickly became the cornerstone of Chamart's business.  The Chamart Ěxclusive line includes: Limoges porcelain bath and boudoir accessories, picture frames, mirrors, stationery accessories, dinnerware, hand painted ceramics,  French glass perfume bottles and decorative items.

It is possible to find Chamart perfume bottles and atomizers (most likely Irice) on the internet, the pieces had labels which read "Chamart France." People often think that Chamart was an actual perfume company, but they weren't. They imported the bottles from the Verreries et Cristalleries Waltersperger in France and sold them in the USA. This was part of a collection of perfume bottles made in the Normandy region of France. Chamart distributed them in the US in the 1960’s 1970’s and early 1980’s. 

Labels:

There are two labels associated with these perfume bottles, each is similar to the other in shape and color. Most of the time, the labels are missing. The base of the bottles will be embossed with "Made in France." 

 

Gallery of Waltersperger Perfume Bottles, many imported by Chamart:

I have taken the liberty of locating all the Chamart and Waltersperger bottles I could find and compile this guide for you. The bottles below are manufactured by Waltersperger, most have been found with Chamart labels. The bottles were produced in shades of pink, blue, purple, colorless, and opalescent glass. In most cases, I have converted the glass colors to black and white to make identification of the mold shape easier to identify. The bottles in opalescent glass, have not been converted to black and white.

I often find them being sold without their labels, and many times they are called antiques. They aren't true antiques as they aren't 100 years old or more, but they are considered vintage. Sometimes the bottles are often mistakenly sold as Czechoslovakian by uninformed sellers, but we know that they were made in France. Ones very similar to this were also made for and given away as incentives by the Yves Rocher cosmetics company in the 1980s and early 1990s, mainly in pink frosted glass but they had white as well, I believe those bottles were made in Taiwan.

The famous butterfly bottle is now made exclusively for Annick Goutal in Paris by Waltersperger, in various colors, decorations and for various perfumes.